Director of National Intelligence Reviews US Funding of More Than 120 Biolabs Abroad

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has begun an investigation into more than 120 biological laboratories abroad funded by US taxpayer dollars for decades. The review is intended to assess research at the facilities, including gain-of-function experiments that could increase virus transmissibility, and follows President Trump’s executive order on such work.

Under guidance from Gabbard, the US Intelligence Community will examine activities at all US-funded biolabs. This includes both experiments that could enhance pathogen dangers and defensive research aimed at countering them. Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials stated that the labs are located in more than 30 countries.

More than 40 of the biolabs under review are in Ukraine. Officials noted these facilities could be at risk of compromise due to Russia’s war. Many received past funding through a Department of Defense program established after the Cold War to dispose of weapons of mass destruction.

The research falls under the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. It is aimed at studying pathogens to prevent future outbreaks and improving biosecurity. Officials said clinical trials at the biolabs are raising significant ethical, financial and security concerns.

Critics have pointed to lax oversight of funding that flows through US agencies to grantees and subawardees. This structure, they argue, limits public knowledge of whether dangerous experiments are occurring. The Defense Department’s watchdog previously could not determine how many enhanced potential pandemic pathogens were under study in China or other nations despite more than $1.4 billion spent on such experiments outside the US between 2014 and 2023.

2014 and 2021, US-funded experiments on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology violated grant terms by making viruses 10,000 times more infectious, according to the National Institutes of Health. Officials have denied that the research caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden administration denied the existence of US-owned or US-operated chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine in a March 9, 2022 statement. It described related claims as Chinese and Russian propaganda issued shortly after the Russian invasion began.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials said these denials formed part of an Information Resilience strategy that sought to shape the public narrative and downplay US ties to the research. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the current administration is addressing issues from prior years.

“The prior administration bankrolled dangerous Gain-of-Function research and foreign biolabs with American tax dollars, then deliberately hid it from the American people,” Hegseth said in a statement. Gabbard stated that the COVID-19 pandemic showed the global impact of research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs.

She added that despite those dangers, such work continued.